Baltimore: The Plague Ships #1 Review

One of the joys of reading Mike Mignola's Hellboy and BPRD books is that most of the numerous mini-series are easily accessible to new readers. That doesn't prove to be the case for Baltimore: The Plague Ships. This tie-in to the novel Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire doesn't cater to new readers very well at all. The main character is poorly defined, leaving the reader to wonder why they should care when Lord Baltimore lands himself in a predicament. He doesn't immediately capture the imagination like Sir Edward Grey of Mignola's Witchfinder stories.

Fortunately, the same chilling atmosphere common to most of Mignola's work is still present here. Scenes of vampire hunting should entertain, even if the characters themselves don't. Ben Stenbeck's art also helps matters. As with Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels, Stenbeck provides a very old-fashioned visual style that nonetheless evokes Mignola's own familiar style. For the most part, all this series accomplishes is to make me vaguely curious about the original novel. Perhaps that can be considered a success. Still, when held against the copious output of Mignola and his collaborators at Dark Horse, Baltimore falls somewhat short of the mark.